History is repeating itself, but this time its echo is all too familiar.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine this week brings with it a chilling, global sensation. There is no longer peace across Europe, and from our wealthy, ensconced villas in the States, there seems to be very little we can do about it beyond lobbing sanctions or offering a milquetoast saber rattle.
This new war–a term I’m still wrapping my head around–offers up another curious generational fold for we baby X-ers (or, conversely, geriatric millennials, another term demanding grave pause). Russia as warmongering adversary–sounds familiar, right?
I am old enough to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. I knew Mikhail Gorbachev’s name as a kid, and Boris Yeltsin’s. I studied in schools that had window shade-style maps with “U.S.S.R.” printed broadly across their northeastern quadrants. In my memory, the country was a deep shade of red.
Generationally speaking, I occupy a sweet spot in this story. If you’re much older than I am, you probably practiced “Duck and Cover” type school drills and lived with a low-level humming anxiety, waiting for the bright flash from Moscow. If you’re a decade younger than me, you’ve lived your life in a post-Cold War channel, one defined by the wealthy confidence portrayed by a strong America guiding another defeated nation into the democratic herd. That small span of time in the middle, my group, has a foot on both sides.
